Xbox 360 disc. $20. Three games: Raiden Fighters 1, Raiden Fighters 2, Raiden Fighters Jet. 5-8 Stages each. Two-Player dualplay (co-op), local only. Everything comes unlocked. 8-16+ Selectable ships. Detailed video settings (Scanline config, Tate, etc.). Caravan Mode/Score Attack, Boss Rush Mode, and Leaderboards with two difficulties per mode for all games.

Replays recordable, viewable from leaderboards, and savable to hard drives. Replays include fast-forward feature, but not rewindable.

Worth the price?: One of the best gaming deals, period!
Very Much Recommended: Literally everybody. Yes, even a host from Gamers With Jobs. Shocking!
Not Recommended: Anybody who absolutely cannot stand the Shooting Game genre for significant reasons. If you’re on the fence about the genre, that doesn’t count; buy this game. It’s the perfect place to begin or re-experience the genre.

Armed Police Batrider fans, get the hell over here, send Valcon some thank you letters for flying this west, and celebrate with case of (ugh!) Busch. This here is a party in a box for some frugal-ass gamers.

Raiden is a shoot-em-up series known for its slow pace, those bastard sniper helicopters, and the crazy fun purple laser. It’s usually enjoyed by gentleman with or without top hats and extremely dedicated “retro” gamers alike. But this is the Raiden Fighters series we’re talking about. Imagine the original Raiden series being a wine and cheese party somewhere in The Hamptons with detailed, frilly decorations hosted by Hugh Laurie and populated entirely by (the better) B-list celebrities but without Bruce Campbell. Now envision the Raiden Fighters series being Lil’ Jon crashing that party with the entire East Side Boyz crew, T.I., Akon, Michael Vick, a just-escaped O.J. Simpson, 17 Strippers, a bigass strobe light, Rasheed Wallace, Chuck Norris, Norm MacDonald, somebody in a big-ass Tinkerbell costume, Soulja Boy, and Vanilla Ice holding turntables and a pound of pure mixed with speed and adderall.

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Just look at that vertical screen. Perfect for vertical up/down shmups, right? Unfortunately, finding a good shooter on the iPhone hasn’t been easy. An audio-free rRootage came out several months ago, but aside from that the choices have been slim and what has been there hasn’t been very good.

The other day, I decided to scour the App Store for a good shmup; vertical, horizontal, whatever. Much to my surprise, I came across a few that are well worth your attention and, in some cases, actually worth your money. Granted, none of them quite achieve console shmup status, but they’re still good little time-killers.

Let’s have a look…

Hot Field
C2 Matrix
Price: $1.99
Demo Available

Despite the generic title, Hot Field is actually a pretty impressive little shooter reminiscent of games like Soldier Blade or Batsugun. Your ship’s guns are set to auto-fire and you use your finger to move the ship around the screen. Tapping with another finger will activate your laser, which helps to clear out waves of enemies. Double tapping will cause your ship to enter “Bullet Time”, which is exactly what it sounds like: enemies and their bullets will slow down.

Bullet Time sounds good in theory, but the one problem I had with Hot Field was that it’s a bit sluggish and slow to begin with. Your ship crawls along at a snail’s pace, and the bullets don’t come at you very quickly. Your ship also has a life meter, meaning no one-hit deaths. These factors wind up making the game feel a bit cumbersome as the levels seem to take an eternity to get through. Nevertheless, at $2 I’d still give it a recommendation. Hot Field still manages to be enjoyable and fun to pull up in a pinch.

To check out some videos, hit the official site here
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I got some epilogues to shmuppreciation month. One is this dohicky. There’s like, six sites now that break down shooting game news since Danmaku-gata, the once great king of the shooting news blog took a nosedive. Much of that news, like a NeoGAF thread, gets buried in whining and paragraphs about scanlines. Other chunks of the new shit passes by much of Kotaku’s nets. Furthermore, a lot of old great references need a good ‘ol fashioned bookmarking. All people really need are references and name drops in a genre like this. That’s what this here news feed’ll give you. There’s a few people workin’ the post button on that scene: Megalixir, Postman, GaijinPunch, and Meself. Follow the cause if you’d like, RSS dat shiz, or just run though those other forum discussions manually. You got choices, kids.

Gotta plug some sites since they’re good guys: Shoot-the-Core ‘n Gamengai

It’s a sad, sad day as Shmup Month finally draws to a close. However, the great news is that a winner has been announced in the Shmuppreciation Month tournament. To find out who won (maybe it was you), head on over to ShmupMonth.com.

Amazingly, the prize is even better than originally advertised as not only does it include a “Play it Cool” Saturn and a copy of DoDonPachi, but also three bonus games provided by Carlson at Mad-Gear.com. How cool is that?

A special word of thanks goes out to MC Wilson, the guy who not only started Shmuppreciation Month, but also put together the contest, provided the prize, and created a way for multiple gaming communities to come together and celebrate what is currently one of the most overlooked genres in games. We raise our drinks to you, good sir!

But remember, just because March is over doesn’t mean you should stop shmuppreciating. Please support these games and the small, niche developers that put them out throughout the year. The more you vote with your wallets, the better the chances are of getting localized versions of DoDonPachi Black Label, Raiden IV, Otomedius Gorgeous, and more.

Support our shmups!

We say a tearful goodbye to Shmupreciation Month with a look at Burn Zombies Burn, Henry Hatsworth and a look back at Gradius V. The Shmopera ends with Act 4-Finale and you DON’T want to miss it. In fact, you’ll want to check this one out in Stereo in the post below. DJ Incompetent returns with one more round of SCIENCE!, so drink it all in while you can. We hope you’ve enjoyed the month as much as we have! Come, celebrate the last Shmupreciation Month episode with us!

Email Us: mailbag@drunkengamersradio.com
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SHOWNOTES

PSN Review: Burn Zombies Burn!
DS Review: Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure
Retro Review: Gradius V (PS2)
News: The Fridge is Clean
The Legend of Zelda-Spirit Tracks
DSi Enhanced Software
Katamari to PS3
Ratchet and Clank-A Crack in Time
Release List
Shmopera Act 4-Finale
DJ Incompetent Presents-SCIENCE!
The Last Shot
DGR Mailbag

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DGR: 03.27.2009

We’re proud of many things on this site, but I think I can speak for the three of us when I say that this makes us pretty damn happy with ourselves.

It’s the Grand Finale of the Shmopera and we’ve brought in the infamous Phil Haymes who lends his Rock God status to the track and…shit…just takes it to a whole new level. As is his way. Make sure to give a shout out to Phil Haymes in the comments for his awesome guitar work on this track. A sincere and heartfelt thanks to you, my friend.

To recap for those who may have missed it:

The Captain, self proclaimed King of Silver City, has lost it all. The Spacebot is victorious and has destroyed all that the Captain knows and loves.

The Captain is out for revenge and in his most vengeful moment, he discovers a truth that leads to the ultimate ending.

We hope you have enjoyed the 2009 Shmopera as much as we have in making it. We present the conclusion with Act 4, in the Audio Format of the Future: Stereo.

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You probably saw the title for this and you’re wondering if you read things right. Yes, games do exist for the Zune, there may only be a handful available at the moment, but one of them is indeed a shmup! Now it’s obvious the Zune doesn’t hold a candle to what seems like an infinite amount of games that are available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but last fall Microsoft released a smidgin’ of games free of charge for the Zune to at least show that gaming on the Zune is possible. So alongside other monumental releases like Checkers and Sudoku, Microsoft released a top-down shmup in the form of the aptly titled Space Battle. Let the shmuppreciation begin…..sort of.

If you’re wondering how it’s possible to control a shmup on the Zune, the developers made the most of what they could work with. Depending on your model of Zune, the d-pad/scroll pad is used to maneuver your spacecraft from side to side, and the play/pause button is used to launch bombs. That is all, and I’m not kidding. Oh yeah, I’m guessing you may be curious on how to execute a basic firing command, the programmers got around this by having your ship set to auto fire at all times. I was slightly perplexed when I first fired up Space Battle and noticed I had no control over the firing, and wished the rate of fire was at least a little more on par with the craziness I’m use to playing in past shmups.

I eventually warmed up to this gameplay design, and gliding over power ups for double and triple thankfully helped get the controls around the Zune’s limitations. My only gripe is that maneuvering the ship can be a little too sensitive with the Zune’s scroll pad. I own an 80gb Zune, and while I was starting to get the hang of things, one quick little slip-up on the Zune’s scroll pad instantly resulted in the loss of a credit.

For being a free shmup on the Zune, Space Battle has a surprising amount of content. Now it’s not an Ikaruga-caliber experience by any means, but on the flipside it’s not the single level tech demo I thought it would be going in. There are several stages of shmup goodness to unlock, aforementioned power-ups that help tremendously in boss encounters, jukebox functionality to listen to your own songs and podcasts during gameplay and the ability to upgrade your ship between levels.

Of the few games available for the Zune, Space Battle is easily the showcase of the Zune’s graphical capabilities. While the 3D models for your ship and enemies are only on par with shmups from around the 32-bit era, everything has a clean look to it, and the final boss defeat animations do have that genre trademark big explosion. The developers also took the time to add in some snazzy backdrops, which is a little surprising considering I went in expecting nothing more than the Galaga treatment with a smacking of stars making up a majority of the background.

I’m guessing the iPhone/iPod Touch has a better offering of shmups on its platform, but closet Zune owners at least have a competent shmup they can claim as their own, and for free no less! Space Battle could have easily been a rushed together piece of scrap metal thrown up on the Zune Marketplace, but instead winds up a surprisingly playable, and dare I say fun, experience.

Again for your listening pleasure, we present Act 3 in Stereo for your rocking pleasure. And rock you shall as the Spacebot goes hardcore.

He warned the Captain, but still he gloated and lived. But the Spacebot is unwavering in his programmed disdain for the human race and the angry flame of their destruction rages in his cold circuit filled heart.

As his destructive flight takes him to Silver City, the empty reaches of space are filled with the chant of “Burn, Burn, Burn”.

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So how did that Ikaruga challenge treat you? If you’re anything like me, it probably kicked you in the balls and stole your wallet. Well, good news: Vic Viper has posted the new challenge for Shmup Month and promises it’ll be a bit easier for you…

The final Shmup Month Challenge for 2009 is likely to be the easiest of the bunch; yet it should still prove enjoyable for those that are up to the task. Your mission this week, should you choose to accept it, is to acquire the Heart of the Cards badge in Frantic, a browser-based shmup available to play for free at Kongregate.

While a browser-based game is not a very traditional option, the Galactic Federation wishes to have at least one Challenge that is open to everyone. In order to get the Heart of the Cards badge, you must complete the game (it has ten stages). Make sure you create a Kongregate account! Once you’ve obtained the Heart of the Cards badge, email your Kongregate username to Vic Viper and we’ll verify that you’ve successfully completed the Challenge.

Good luck!

To play Frantic, follow this link. Again, be certain to create a Kongregate username. When you’ve completed the challenge, head on over to ShmupMonth.com to share your info with the Federation.

Good luck!

You remember an article with a vid about a Cave Tribute. It was fantastic. Funny. Useful.

The author of this work is Rob from the shmups.com forums. A good guy with knack for taste and the skills to bury mine. He’s one of the world’s top western players.
Rob makes these Pro Review videos that differ from other reviewers in that he doesn’t hang up on silly stuff like game content length and “too hard”, but reviews games on an understood loose criteria that he’s able to 1 credit clear everything he touches or at least get very close; usually. He also picks up on the scoring systems which all reviewers ignore as they credit feed and whine that the games are too short.

The hook, this Alaskan guy bends his voice into a hilarious southern accent.

This guy gets it. Shmuppreciate him.

He gets his hands on some slick imports or are they? So if you want to look at some games under a critical eye in time to buy these goods from the Mad-Gear booth, or you want to see a review where you get to know what the game after stage 1 looks like, this is the guy to hear out.

Thunderforce IV. J-PS2

Sample some more below or hit up his youtube channel. He’s got some Gunbird 2, Axelay, Geo Wars 2, Bangai-O Spirits, Aegis Wing, and Ikaruga all up ons.

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